Language consequences of modern psychological and information warfare in Russian mass-media: problem definition

The paper deals with the urgent and topical issue of political linguistics - the influence of information and psychological warfare on the Russian language. The aim of the paper is to describe the most frequent novices in the modern Russian language and speech which occur due to the domestic information and psychological warfare. The research was carried out on the basis of the mass-media texts, the traditional linguistic research methods were used (analysis and description, contextual and axiological analysis, etc.). As the result of the analysis the authors singled out both new and traditional words and word combinations which simultaneously serve as the weapon and the result of information and psychological warfare. Two groups of language (speech) means were defined: specialized (which perform the relevant evaluative function - either positive or negative) and non-specialized (which change the function depending on the context, the semantic ambivalent words and word combinations). The specialized means include pejorative words and word combinations: political labels, invectives, terribilitisms (bogey-words), delusions (trap-words), negatively connotative words, and euphemisms. Ameliorative means are not characteristic of information and psychological warfare, though words and word combinations are widely used which denote national concepts being the subject of information rivalry. Neutral language means in information and psychological warfare in the Russian language include terms and terminoids, naming various types of rivalries and technologies constituting them. The results obtained contribute to the development of the information and psychological warfare linguistics. Research perspectives encompass the refinement of some points and the analysis of information and psychological warfare language consequences in the light of linguistic ecology.

GENDER NEUTRALITY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: TEACHER TALK AND COURSEBOOKS

Постановка проблемы. В статье рассматривается феномен гендерной нейтральности при обучении английскому языку и представлены результаты анализа речи учителей и содержания учебников. Целью данного исследования является выявление степени осведомленности учителей английского языка в России о гендерной нейтральности в английском языке и существующих стратегиях гендерно нейтрального речевого поведения на занятиях по английскому языку, а также выявление того, насколько содержание учебников по английскому языку соответствует принципам гендерной нейтральности. Результаты. Результаты исследования демонстрируют, что многие учителя и авторы учебников используют гендерно нейтральные лексические и грамматические стратегии, но при этом им не удается избегать гендерных стереотипов и неравной репрезентации персонажей, персоналий и прецедентных имен. Таким образом, предположение, что учителя английского языка используют в своей речи гендерно окрашенные лексические и грамматические средства, а также гендерные стереотипы на занятиях по английскому языку, частично подтвердилось: более 60% учителей не владеют гендерно нейтральным речевым поведением в достаточной степени. В отношении содержания учебников гипотеза также частично подтвердилась: 60% учебников содержат гендерные стереотипы, а в 90% проанализированных учебников встретился дисбаланс мужских и женских персонажей, персоналий и прецедентных имен (в сторону мужских). Выводы. Представляется целесообразной разработка особых рекомендаций по гендерно нейтральному речевому поведению на занятиях по английскому языку для учителей английского языка в России, в которых были бы учтены некоторые аспекты гендерной нейтральности в английском языке. Данные рекомендации должны соотноситься с российским социокультурным контекстом и включать в себя все необходимые объяснения о специфике гендерной нейтральности и ее важности в англоязычном контексте. State of the problem. The article explores the phenomenon of gender neutrality in language education and presents the results of classroom discourse analysis and coursebook content analysis. The purpose of the study is to reveal to what extent teachers of English as a foreign language (L2 teachers) in Russia use gender-neutral language and gender-neutral behaviour strategies in the classroom and how gender neutrality is presented in the English coursebooks (created both by Russian and international authors). The novelty is determined by the fact that this is the first attempt to analyse teacher talk and English coursebook contents in terms of their gender neutrality in the Russian socio-cultural context. Results. Results show that many lessons and coursebooks analysed use some gender-neutral vocabulary and grammar strategies, but contain gender-stereotyping and unequal representation of personalia and case names. The proposed hypothesis that English teachers in Russia use gendered lexical and grammatical means, as well as gender stereotypes in the classroom was validated to a certain extent. The overall result demonstrates that more than 60% of teachers are not gender-neutral. As for the coursebooks, most of them seem to be gender-neutral in terms of grammar, and half of them seem to be gender-neutral in terms of vocabulary. At the same time, 60% of coursebooks contain gender stereotypes and 90% do not represent males and females equally (with male superiority in number). Conclusion. Special guidelines on gender-neutral English in the classroom for English teachers in Russia should be created to provide some recommendations on the use of gender-neutral language and the use of coursebooks. These guidelines should refer to the Russian socio-cultural context and contain all the necessary footnotes for teachers to explain to them the importance of gender neutrality in the English language and to help them to explain the phenomenon to the students, who might experience certain challenges while acquiring the concept of gender neutrality that is only minimally represented in the Russian language.

Space and Language of Women

Language is an active media to register all the human activities in its core and insist people to strictly act and think according to those frameworks in the language. We can notice the micro politics of the dominance of power and inability of slavery in the language. In the medium of language, we can see the elements of dominance in the form of caste, religion, politics, economics...etc but the elements of gender dominance in the language is more evident than other things. Women gender are totally unaware of those gender discriminated language elements in a common language. This article emphasizes how to eliminate male gender dominated elements in a language and the need to mould a gender-neutral language. And also tried to point out the space restrictions put on female gender and impact of the restrictions recorded in a language.

Advertising and/ Is Educating

The objective of this article is to discuss how gender narratives have been used in the field of advertising, seeking to understand the textual and imagery aesthetics involved in them and how they would act in the process of educating consumers on the issue. Communication and education are "volatile" fields of study, with seasonality and changing conceptualizations; thus, each new analysis represents not a theoretical objectivism based on the search for truth, but rather an addition, to the market and to the world, of a new way of thinking, understanding, and above all, transmitting messages. With this in mind and to support the theoretical discussion undertaken, two case studies of advertising campaigns were conducted, one of them international, of L'Oreal and the other, national of Avon brand, both using neutral language, in order to understand how and with what results the commitment to use this type of language acts in consumers’ ways of thinking and acting towards a more inclusive and egalitarian society.

Gender-Neutral Language in English and French Linguo-Cultures

Gender linguistics studies the gender-neutral aspect in detail that is usually manifested in a language. One of its provisions tells us that language not only possesses such qualities as anthropocentrism (human orientations) is, but it also implies androcentrism, that is, that it presents a picture of the world based on a masculine viewpoint, in the form of a man (as a personality). The manifestation of such gender asymmetry in the language leads to unequal representation of persons of different sexes and is considered to be intolerant, especially among the members of a foreign language culture.In our paper we deal with the peculiarities of gender-neutral language in English and French linguo-cultures, determine the similarities - the differences between gender-neutral lexis and try to show the cases in which they occur in the process of language interaction. It should be noted that the requirements of political correctness, which are due to non-linguistic reasons, play an important role in the language policy of any country.In conclusion, it should be admitted that in English and French linguistics, the priority to the designation of women in the professional field is given in different ways. Neutral forms are more common (and therefore more widespread) in English whereas in French, however, the forms with inflectional changes or analytical structures of generating nouns are more preferable. Anyway, in European society, language policy and the use of gender-neutral language are greatly influenced by political correctness requirements due to extralinguistic reasons.

S’attaquer à la suprématie du masculin sur le féminin : le français inclusif dans les publications des universités françaises dans les réseaux sociaux

This paper aims to examine the use of inclusive French in the Internet publications of Paris universities on their social media. Three higher education institutions were selected: Paris Dauphine-PSL University, Gustave Eiffel University, and Sorbonne Paris North University. The publications were obtained from Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Firstly, the groups of people to whom the use of inclusive French referred were considered. The second question was about the practices used to make the French language inclusive. Eight practices were observed and are described in the paper. Also, the frequency of gender-neutral language was a point of interest. The research corpus is available online: https://tiny.pl/9rcdj.

In conversation with digitalization: Myths, fiction or professional imagining?

We are surrounded by narratives about digitalization – in media, in white papers, in policies and in academic discourse. This article aims to dissect policy narratives to unveil the dominant stories associated with digitalization and open a dialogue on their consequences. The empirical material includes policy documents on digitalization at the European Union, national and sub-national levels focusing on the Swedish context. The article argues that these documents not only produce narratives of digitalization that reveal a certain orientation towards reality but also become tangible constructs. Further, despite their neutral language, they should be considered part of the problem formulation. The analysis is carried out by identifying the dominant and taken-for-granted stories, and the results show that digitalization, often portrayed as a modern and innovative concept, is frequently narrated in line with rather traditional perceptions of industrialized modernity. The results indicate that digitalization is trapped in an unambiguous and cramped dramaturgy, and if policies are enacted in the same way in practice, we will face a rather un-resilient digital modernity.

The Underappreciated Effects of Unreliability on Multiple Regression and Mediation

There is an increasing trend for researchers in the social sciences to draw causal conclusions from correlational data. Even researchers who use relatively causally neutral language in describing their findings, imply causation by including diagrams with arrows. Moreover, they typically make recommendations for intervention or other applications in their discussion sections, that would make no sense without an implicit assumption that the findings really do indicate causal pathways. The present manuscript commences with the generous assumption that regression-based procedures extract causation out of correlational data, with an exploration of the surprising effects of unreliability on causal conclusions. After discussing the pros and cons of correcting for unreliability, the generous assumption is questioned too. The conclusion is that researchers should be more cautious in interpreting findings based on correlational research paradigms.